MADRID, Spain – The National Intelligence Centre has sent a report to the National High Court pointing to Morocco’s security forces of “passivity” that helped the “overflowing” of the situation in the mass entry into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July, and to its authorities for being “fully aware” of the events that were going to occur those days due to social media calls to cross the border.
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In the 24-page document delivered to Judge María Tardón, to which 20minutos has had access, the Spanish secret services explain that they have continued to carry out investigations to “determine in greater detail what happened after the most acute phase of the crisis,” specifying that “a good part of the information and analysis collected” in their report is based on inquiries after 30 and 31 July. “These investigations allow us to confirm that the Moroccan authorities were aware, days before the mass entry occurred, that an anomalous situation was being generated in terms of possible attempts at irregular entry into Ceuta, and that they had decided to reinforce the security deployment existing until that moment,” the CNI explains. But in practice, it adds, “they showed very irregular involvement in the prevention and control of the crisis.”
Thus, the report, signed by CNI director Esperanza Casteleiro, specifies that although until the day before the mass entry the Moroccan authorities “maintained a certain proactivity in the interception of swimmers, the modality of irregular entry that was dominant until that moment,” when the number of people attempting to enter began to increase very significantly, “an insufficient deployment of security forces could be observed, combined with an attitude of passivity, which led to the overflowing of their deployment.”
According to the intelligence services, the Moroccan authorities “knew in detail of the existence of social media calls, with great following by their users, calling for a mass entry into Ceuta coinciding with Throne Day,” and those authorities were “fully aware that this flow was going to occur.” Faced with the “loss of control of the situation,” the Moroccan forces did not have a “proactive reaction.”
The “pull effect driven by social media,” the CNI continues, led to “numerous groups of migrants approaching the border coastline during 30 July from the slopes of the mountains,” with “traffic jams due to the influx of people in vehicles and on foot along the A-7 road linking Tetouan and Castillejos” even being recorded. “The Royal Gendarmerie established checkpoints that proved insufficient to contain the massive arrival of migrants to the surroundings of Ceuta,” it notes. In the days before the mass entry, such as 29 July, the flow of migrants intercepted in Morocco by its security forces had increased “very notably compared with those previously recorded,” the report explains, with the Moroccan authorities having in fact begun “to take reinforcement measures with the deployment of more Auxiliary Forces personnel in the vicinity of the breakwater that serves as the border between Ceuta and Castillejos,” but the following day, during the hours of “maximum influx” of people entering, they did not have the necessary reinforcements.
It was not until the afternoon of 30 July that the Moroccan border control deployment was increased, with “more forceful measures, such as detentions, transfers inland and the use of deterrent means, only beginning to be applied once the peak of entries by land and sea into Ceuta had already occurred,” it specifies.
For the CNI, “the insufficiency and ineffectiveness of the Moroccan border control deployment would be attributable to its authorities having given priority to ensuring that the Throne Day celebrations held at the Rincón Palace passed without incident over preventing a mass entry of migrants into Ceuta.”
Regarding the warnings given by Spanish intelligence services in the days before the mass entry, the document maintains that both the then chief of staff of the Government Delegation in Ceuta were informed on 27, 28 and 29 July via calls or WhatsApp messages, and the Civil Guard on 29 July through the same channels, “so that they would pass it on to their hierarchical superiors with the aim that they be aware.” The CNI provides screenshots of the messages sent to both, one of which shows the reply of Gonzalo Sanz, former chief of staff, saying: “sus rilas.”
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In those messages exchanged with Sanz, the secret services insisted that the social media groups where the calls for a mass entry were made had some 180,000 people, and the former chief of staff asked whether that figure was not “a bit exaggerated,” to which the CNI replied that “even if only 10 per cent tried to access, the volume of migrants could be higher than that recorded in the episode already experienced in 2021.” The document delivered to the National High Court also reveals that the government consulted the Supreme Court two days before the avalanche on what should be understood by “means of containment” at sea, in order to be able to return those who arrived swimming to the autonomous city, as the former chief of staff himself told the CNI, due to the high court’s ruling in early July that vetoed hot returns when immigrants arrive by sea and there is no physical means of containment. A “biased interpretation” of that ruling is one of the reasons the secret services point to as part of the massive calls to cross into Ceuta at the end of July.
